US President Barack Obama prodded Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) yesterday on maritime territorial rows and economic wrangles amid signs of Chinese scorn for his Pacific diplomacy push.
The talks followed a week of increasingly sharp exchanges between the two powers after Obama repeatedly showed impatience with Beijing’s economic record during his weeklong tour of the Pacific.
Obama and Wen met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit after the Chinese premier asked for more time to continue a conversation with the US leader that began at an official dinner on Friday night.
US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said the talks focused mainly on economics, reflecting Wen’s principal portfolio.
Obama discussed concerns about what Washington sees as the artificially low value of the yuan and trade disputes that he raised with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in Hawaii last week, Donilon said.
He also mentioned South China Sea territorial disputes, which the US wants to discuss in general terms in the summit, but which China says should be confined to talks between the individual regional nations concerned.
“The president indicated that they would have a further conversation about it in the context of the East Asia Summit leaders’ retreat,” Donilon said, adding that several Southeast Asian nations had raised maritime issues with Obama.
Wen and Obama met on the same day a commentary by China’s Xinhua news agency dripped with contempt for his attempt to show that the US considers itself a Pacific power and will remain so.
“The US move has fuelled strong suspicions from the region. Many countries wonder what kind of ‘leadership’ America aspires to assume in the future,” it said. “If the United States sticks to its Cold War mentality and continues to engage with Asian nations in a self-assertive way, it is doomed to incur repulsion in the region.”
“It is also called upon to guard against sparking disputes and encroaching on others’ interests,” the commentary said, in an apparent reference to the row over the strategic South China Sea.
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